It’s one of my favorite times of the year: March Madness. (For non-Americans: That means college basketball playoffs.)

I grew up in Los Angeles during a time when UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) was the dominant college basketball team. As a kid, I would have wanted nothing more than to have played basketball there, especially for their amazing coach, John Wooden. Somehow my 3” vertical leap and complete lack of coordination nipped my basketball career in the bud.

But it never stopped me from admiring Coach Wooden. He would have made a great ScrumMaster. My favorite quote from him was, “Be quick but don’t hurry.”

Isn’t that a perfect motto for Scrum teams? Scrum teams need to go fast but always with an eye toward quality. They need to go fast but not so fast they create technical debt. They need to be quick but should not cross the line and make mistakes. They need to be quick but should not hurry.

“Be quick but don’t hurry” was not Coach Wooden’s only Scrum-friendly advice. He was well known for creating what he called the pyramid of success, fifteen principles when combined led to success. He also listed what he called twelve lessons in leadership. Consider just a few of his lessons in leadership:

Call yourself a teacher

Emotion is your enemy

Little things make big things happen

Make each day your masterpiece

The carrot is mightier than the stick

Make greatness attainable by all

Seek significant change

Don’t look at the scoreboard

Adversity is an asset

You can read the full list of leadership lessons and see his Pyramid of Success on the CoachJohnWooden.com website.

Leave a comment below and let me know if you agree Coach Wooden would have made a great ScrumMaster.

Would you like to include comments?

Tagged:

About the Author

As the founder of Mountain Goat Software, Mike Cohn specializes in helping companies adopt and improve their use of agile processes and techniques to build extremely high-performance teams. He is the author of User Stories Applied for Agile Software Development, Agile Estimating and Planning, and Succeeding with Agile. Mike is a founding member of the Agile Alliance and Scrum Alliance. He is also the founder of FrontRowAgile.com, an online agile training website. He can be reached at [email protected] or connect with Mike on Google+.

Hi Glen--You're absolutely right. It would be very limiting if we were limited to learning from only those whom we know directly.

Posted by mikewcohn on 2013-03-27 22:29:19

Mike,

Someone said something but I can't remember exactly - everyone owns part of truth of human being and all together own all truth of human being.

It's not important that I don't know Coach Wooden. I still can learn his artributes, and through you.

Glen

Posted by Glen Wang on 2013-03-27 22:19:35

Hi Paul--

You sound like a big basketball fan. Popovich is probably the best coach in the NBA right now. He always seems to make the most of the talent he has and that's probably the indicator of a great coach (or ScrumMaster). The team is consistent and performs to or above expectation. I don't think many thought they'd have the record they do today.

Some of the colleges do seem to rely more on system than superstars. I've never been a Duke fan (too much success will do that) but their success year after year points to having a reliable system.

I grew up in LA as a Lakers and with the Clippers just far enough away in San Diego that I could like them, too. Plus they never had enough success that I felt them a threat to the Lakers. The last two years, though, that has been completely different. My heart will always belong to the Lakers but the last two years I've really enjoyed watching the Clippers. Right now, I'm an anyone-but-Miami guy!

Posted by mikewcohn on 2013-03-27 13:24:15

Hi Glen--

I was reading your reply while waiting for my reply to an earlier comment to post. So I only had one eye on your comment at first and was thinking you were going to include Coach Wooden in with those! :) He's one of my personal heroes but not even I would put him in that list!

Posted by mikewcohn on 2013-03-27 13:18:20

Thanks. It really is amazing how quickly small things add up to big improvements. I often tell teams I just want things moving in the right direction: the code getting a little better with each change, rather than a little worse; or adding a few automated tests rather than none.

Good point, too, about emotion. One of Coach Wooden's leadership lessons was "Emotion is your enemy," which fits exactly with what you describe.

Posted by mikewcohn on 2013-03-27 13:16:32

Thanks, Jefferson. I suspect there are many things to be balanced against one another whether that is coaching basketball teams or Scrum teams.

Posted by mikewcohn on 2013-03-27 13:12:33

Luis Scola and Shawn Bradley prove that 3" of clearance is all you need. Perhaps vertical leap follows INVEST and 3" is what was finally agreed upon.

I think Coach Wooden would've made a great Scum Master based on the tenets above. Appropriate reactions and constant incremental improvements are what we strive for, yes? A solid Team born through conflict ('02 Lakers) is definitely better than a random collection of stars ('13 Lakers).

Actually, the concept of Scrum 'Coach' always seems nebulous to me. With little else to think about since my experience has always been as subordinate to Professors and Teachers, basketball coaches were all I really understood. Phil Jackson did most of his work off court forging personal relationships, Pat Riley with grandiose claims lit fires under his Teams.

But I think it is Greg Popovich who exemplifies Scrum best in the NBA currently. A system optimized for throughput. The players have individual talents that are suppressed for the good of the Team, but leveraged in pursuit of the greater good. Greg handles each game like a sprint, changing his 'scope' in order to ensure velocity, but makes time for infrastructure improvement (Tony and Tim don't play over 40 minutes any more! And Greg got the Team fined for reducing technical debt when he rested players when they didn't 'need' it). He values coach-a-bility over everything else, like we do with creating a learning Team. The Spurs have focused on the long term organizational goals, while building in predictability with a stable Team.

I'm not a big college ball fan because they expend too much effort. There isn't enough coordination and Team chemistry, with young players making up the difference through sheer energy expenditure. They should really focus on process improvement during their retrospectives, so they don't consistently inflate their velocity!

All that said, screw San Antonio! Let's go Clips!

Posted by Paul on 2013-03-26 17:51:22

Yes, the most great people are teachers: Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Socrates.

Posted by Glen Wang on 2013-03-26 03:45:29

Great lessons!

Sadly that not many people believes in those. It's really that small things could make big things happen, just start a little, and do PDCA or Scrum... then you'll see something changed, maybe totally.

Also, I always believe that, a great person must be able to drive his/her emotion. Emotion is not bad, but you have to try your best to be rational always and emotional occasionally, not reversely. Nobody made you angry, it's yourself *decided* to act angry.

However, great lessons and posts, thanks!

Posted by Xu Yi on 2013-03-25 21:52:10

Good post about mindset to leaderships. Frequently I have observed some leaders, with wish to win, but with more hurry than agility, the result is trouble projects, with tired teams and bad financial results. Combined with the negligence, be quick is still more dangerous. Good reflection Mike.